Quotations... Art Inspiration

There's a little Salvadoran restaurant that I frequent, and have become quite friendly with one of the waitresses. She's a gal from Venezuela, a recent immigrant, who, when we first met, spoke little or no English. She was working hard at learning, and since we'd become regulars at the restaurant we would chat and she could to practice her English.

We had a little start one day, when we went for dinner and found the restaurant shuttered and empty. We wondered how we would find our friend again. Lucky for us it turned out that the restaurant had not really closed, but had, quite suddenly, moved to a new location a few miles down the street.

When we finally caught up with our waitress friend again, we told her that we had been sad when had thought the restaurant had closed and we'd not get to see her anymore, so with the idea that someday we would meet for coffee or desserts we exchanged numbers. Unfortunately, I work days and she works most every night, so despite our good intentions, we never managed to make that happen, but we we've continued our friendship at the restaurant.

One night as we finished dining, she came over to the table, three deserts in hand, sat down at the table across from us and told us that since we never are able to coordinate schedules to have our coffee and dessert date, we would just do it now. She went on to say that her father had a saying... "The special moment is now" and explained that he thought it was silly how people are always saving things, like that nice bottle of wine, or the pretty new dress, or the special dinnerware, or whatever, for an off in the future special occasion, when the reality is that life is short and we should enjoy it now. So that night, even though she was working, she declared that "the special moment is now" and we all had a nice dessert together.

As a person who has always been guilty of saving things for the special occasion, I thought that really was an excellent sentiment, one that I really needed to take to heart. I decided that I would put that quote on few coffee mugs as a reminder, and make one for my waitress friend as a thank you for sharing her father's words of wisdom with us.

I threw some mugs and sprigged on little placard on which I stamped "The special moment is now", and a few weeks later, after they had gone through all the drying, glazing and firing steps brought them to my friend at the restaurant. She was thrilled with the surprise, and quite touched that I had remembered her fathers quote. She even cried a little. I always enjoy it when I can make a piece and share it with the perfect person and make them smile! I also enjoy getting new art inspiration. I can see a series of quote mugs in my future!

Alfred Lambourne Prize

So I did a show Friday night... The Alfred Lambourne Prize. It's a show all about art inspired by the Great Salt Lake... I did this show last year, and since I am such a fan of the lake and the cause I made a repeat performance.

This year I did a weird(?-compared to to the standard 2-D sort of fare) I made a ceramic bowl glazed with clay from the lake bed, and in it I placed marbles that I made to represent beautiful things about the lake experience; tinted waters, salt sculptures, rocky landforms, sunset skies, moonlit nights, diverse wildlife.

I didn't win, (of course there are lots of visual arts entries, as opposed to the literary, musical and movement categories, so I never expect to win, I just like to participate!) to) but I was totally shocked when during the program the announcer singled out my piece and gave it gave it a glowing description of as an example of the visual arts category. The program had two slides introducing the visual artist who's work was displayed in the gallery like mine, followed by videos, readings and music performed my those in the other categories.

The interesting thing for my lampwork friends...My other thrill for the night came after the program when a fellow approached me making a funny movement with his thumbs... the traditional marble shooting movement. (Which at first I did not get, because we played marbles in a different manner as kids) He was thrilled about my piece because he really liked the marbles, and my piece took him back to his childhood love of marbles. He really liked how I used them to represent the lake.

I was pretty thrilled to find a marble lover at the show, it is always so exciting when my art lets me make connections with strangers. I wish I'd gotten his name, as I would love to send him a marble.

Tactilis

Juried show number two for the year... Tactilis. This show was at the community college, in conjunction with Art Access, an organization that provides creative opportunities for the disabled and disadvantaged. Tactilis had an interesting theme, showcasing art that was meant to be touched, so that it could be appreciated by those who are visually impaired.

I was excited when I received the email with the call for entries, as I had recently gone on a bender creating ceramic pieces that were intended to be picked up an touched, so Tactilis was right up my alley. I decided I wanted to create a new work, a multimedia sculpture covered with texture and moveable pieces made with my glass beads.

Judging from the reactions of the visitors to the show, I think my foray into touchable art was a success. Even though I couldn't 'read it' thought it was really cool to have my label for the piece printed in braille!

We interupt your regularily scheduled travel blog....

What a nice surprise I had tonight. When I went to pottery class tonight I discovered I won second place in gallery show competition. For September's gallery stroll Red kiln had a show - Don't Be So Square! A ceramic meditation on the box form. The show was the night I left on vacation so I missed the festivities. My large blue box came out of the kiln that morning, so I had to run by the studio to attach my lampwork beads to the lid the morning I left on vacation. I'd completely forgotten that the exhibit was a competition as well a show, so when I went into the gallery tonight to see the show I had missed, I was rather surprised to see a pretty red ribbon hung on one of my pieces.

This was especially exciting for me because these pieces represent my first multimedia work, combining both my pottery and my lampwork glass beads. Even more exciting that because these are the first pieces where I feel like I came up with an original design that is truly all my own.

I have to admit that I find the idea of a competition a tiny bit absurd... I don't know how judges really can compare and rank pieces of such diverse designs as were entered in the show. Everyone's pieces were wonderful, so it's not like winning a ribbon really means your pieces better than someone else's. But it does say some likes them and positive feedback sure feels nice!

Pot Parties...

Oops, make that pottery parties!! I'm not sure I've mentioned it here, but I took up a new hobby last year - pottery. Now the cool thing about my new pottery obsession, is that I get to take classes and do all my work at the Red Kiln Pottery Studio. So not only is pottery another marvelous outlet, but it is a social one as well. The studio is home to many really awesome artists, who are helpful, friendly and fun. Some of the fun includes pottery exchange parties and last weekend they had a mug exchange. For me these exchanges are both challenging an intimidating. Challenging because being relatively new to the art my skills aren't quite "there" yet. Improving all the time, but far from professional. Intimidating because really awesome potters also attend these parties, so I really want to bring something that doesn't scream novice mud musher.

When I first started pottery my goal was to make the perfect coffee mug... right size, right weight, right feel to the handle. Well this turned out to be a difficult goal. Coffee mugs are hard! Clay shrinks, so what seems like an ample mug when thrown often ends up more like a tea cup. Handles are not easy to "pull", shape and attach. So after 3 classes, a year of classes, and about 40 practice mugs, I was still worried about creating anything "good enough".

Pottery is kind of slow... to make a mug you throw it on the wheel, allow it dry for a period of days, them trim it and add handles. I usually allow mine to dry slowly (more days) then it gets fired in the bisque kiln. Then I get to glaze, after which the piece gets set on the shelf awaiting the final firing in the big gas reduction kiln, which only gets fired once every week or two. The big kiln takes a day to fire, and at least a day to cool.

My entries for the mug exchange came down to the wire... my six mugs came out of the kiln the day before the party. Lucky for me, for the first time in my year of pottery, I was pretty happy with what came out of the kiln, I actually had a hard time deciding which two to the party. With a little help from friends I picked the green floral mug and the fish mug. And, thankfully for my fragile ego, my mugs were not the last picked.

Now the cool thing about the party is I got to bring home other artists mugs! I am know the proud owner of one of Susan's Teli-kokopelli mugs. Teli = telemark = skiing. Kokopelli, the flute player of ancient indian rock art. A skiing Kokopelli! Totally cool. My other choice was Lara's computer mug. She took all sorts of computer parts and made stamps to texture the clay for her decorations. Totally unique and totally cool.

Next up on the pottery party circuit is a stein party... a stein is just a big mug... right?